Tourists in Amsterdam are just the worst according to locals

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Cape Town - Amsterdam locals are starting to get fed up with raucous tourists and unruly tourist attractions.

On Tuesday the city's famous beer bikes have been banned from Amsterdam's centre, following a petition from residents to do away with the loud drunk mobile, reports BBC. This seems to mark the start for the city's efforts to curb rowdy tourists who seem to lose all their inhibitions when visiting the Dutch hot spot.

According to an article in The Guardian, tourists' drunken behaviour has gotten quite out of hand for residents, who feel like they've lost the spirit of community in their neighbourhoods. Els Iping told The Guardian that they've lost a number of shops catering to locals as well, making way for tourist-centric businesses.

"Every day throngs of tourists pass by my window. The weekend now starts on Thursday afternoon; the screaming and shouting of tourists boozing it up is deafening. And the rubbish they leave behind!” says Iping.

Late last year The Telegraph reported that 5.2 million tourists descended on a city that only had a population of 800 000, making it 'unlivable' for residents especially over weekends, when other Europeans descend on the city for a raucous weekend. “Amsterdam is starting to look like a playground for visitors; what people call Disneyfication,” one resident told The Telegraph.

The Guardian however posits that this is the result of a massive tourism push from Amsterdam after the 2008 financial crash, which believed that tourism would help save the failing economy. Big investment was pushed into the sector, and now it seems to have worked too well, with a projection of 23 million visitors expected in 2030.

Besides the ban on the beer bike, the city also made a deal with Airbnb, which has also been blamed for the transformation of communities into transitional tourist spots. The company agreed to limit homeowners from renting out their homes for a limited number of days a year. They have also limited the number of new hotels to be built in the areas as well.

The city's council is starting to reframe their marketing pitch. Sebastiaan Meijer, spokesperson for the council, wants to start targeting tourists directly to help curb their antics. "For a long time our marketing policy was simply aimed at making people come to Amsterdam. Now we want to spread a new message: ‘come to Amsterdam, but please behave’,” he told The Guardian.